By Sammy Ted
In the realm of politics, villains often emerge, wielding power and influence to advance their own agendas. Such individuals manipulate the system, exploit the vulnerabilities of others, and leave a trail of chaos in their wake.
Semantically speaking, a villain is an evil or wicked character who enacts evil actions and/or harms others. A villain may have a justification for his actions that is in line with his own principles, but his actions inflict harm and create ruin in the process.
Villainous individuals manifest in different moulds, such as classic villains, archetypal villains, political villains and the like.
Senator Elijah Abbo’s escapades in the Red Chamber have enjoyed luxury of space in the media for many reasons ranging from his misogynistic women-beating spree, to his Ahitophelic role in the Red Chamber.
It will be unfair to Abbo not to shine a spotlight on him in the roll call of lawmakers, who history will not overlook their activities in the course of ‘nation building.’
At this juncture, it is imperative to proffer answers to following pertinent questions:
Is Abbo truly a political villain?
Why is Abbo, alongside his cahoots in the Red Chamber crying wolf when there is none?
The answers to the above mind-boggling questions are not far-fetched: It is no long news that the self-seeking Shakespeare’s Iago incarnate and Ahitophelic lawmaker, Abbo is a senator representing Adamawa North senatorial district. In other words, this exposé is not only intended to delineate Abbo’s treacherous character as an ‘arrow’ in the archery of a few dissatisfied and dissenting senators, but it aptly situates him in the proper political lineage of Shakespearean Casca, who ensured that Decius Brutus was drafted into the conspiratorial plot that cut short Caesar’s life in Rome.
Abbo as a political villain is vividly characterized by a Machiavellian mindset – a willingness to do whatever it takes to remain a useful tool in the hands of some Northern oligarchy cum political puppeteers to promote their self-seeking interests in order to remain relevant in Nigeria’s power equation.
The political Al Capone, Abbo possesses a cunning intellect of a simpleton, a knack for manipulation and loquacity. His disregard for ethical boundaries is unparalleled.
Without mincing words, the exuberant senator thrives in the shadows, operating with a sense of self-interest that supersedes the welfare of the All Progressives Congress, APC, the political party that propelled him into the limelight as well as the people he is meant to serve.
The classic women-beater and an academic genius, nay a child prodigy, “who PASSED his Common Entrance examination in class three,” no doubt, seeks power for personal gain, driven by an insatiable desire for power and affluence.
His clandestine or surreptitious plot alongside others to oust Senate President Godswill Akpabio for reasons inordinately rooted in personal aggradizement and political vendetta was largely driven by his warped ideological extremism cum chauvinism, villainously hatched to upset the good works of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Senate President Akpabio.
Abbo, a master of deception and manipulation, has in his arsenal a range of tactics to achieve his nebulous goals: he artfully warms himself into the affections of Yari and other losers in the race for Senate Presidency, using the tools of propaganda and disinformation to shape opinions of a few disgruntled elements in the Red Chamber, via spreading falsehoods and distorting the truth to further his narratives.
Put succinctly, the sneaky and neophytic Abbo, in a mould of a tragic hero, stokes the ember of falsehood, fuels animosity, and artfully pits the lawmakers against one another.
His grouse for playing the Shakespeare’s Iago in the plot to oust the democratically elected Senate President among other reasons is the “Yorubanization” of the financial and economic system of the country, as well as the wrongful and ridiculous notion that the Red Chamber under the leadership of Akpabio has been a cat’s paw of President Tinubu’s administration.
Abbo and his co-travellers’ view that the 10th National Assembly is the lackey of the executive arm is a tale told by an idiot who is full of sound and fury but signifying nothing! The Red Chamber’s position on ECOWAS’ deployment 8f the instrument of force to restore democracy in Niger Republic lends credence to the above assertion.
The sex-toy store habitué and his team of unpatriotic lawmakers’ clandestine attempt to thwart the efforts of the Senate leadership and President Tinubu’s noble course to transform Nigeria into an oasis of freedom, peace and economic prosperity, is not only divisive but unwarranted.
Enough of poisoning of the well in Nigeria’s polity!
It is high time Abbo and his paymasters eschewed every activity that could undermine the very foundations of our fledgling democracy.
Put aptly, Abbo and his co-hatchet men in the Red Chamber should take a cue from the poetic persona in Clark’s “Casualties,” who enjoins the reader not to start a fire they cannot put out.
Yes. No senator should start a war he or she cannot end, so that Nigerians would not become casualties.
May the previous afflictions not rise again in Nigeria. Amen.
•Ted writes from Abuja.
